#the characters aren't really ocs as I haven't developed them entirely

[bregflr]

Thank you, Big Sall

[wraithsoutlaws]

Then & Now the (x: perfect drug) edition:

Inspired by the fandom to look back and celebrate the boys' journey as well as my own in terms of vp.

March 2021, ps4.

I never created Dagger with the intention to ship him with anyone, but by the time I got here on his file it felt strangely natural. He was still a very fresh oc but things began to click immediately and genuinely felt like it was meant to be. The development of him as a character began to happen side by side with this silly little ship and both ended up becoming really personal and special to me.

It's hard getting decent shots on ps4 with anyone. It's especially hard when it's a minor npc with extremely limited screen time available! You have no idea how many times I went back and played these two quests trying to get something interesting. Honestly I'm really grateful for my time on ps4 not only because it helps me appreciate what I can do now a little more, but I think a lot of my growth happened here, stretching the limited resources I had available.

July 2021, ps4

Learning how to work within the confines of totally vanilla photomode, getting creative with base game poses and skipping time to find the best natural light, etc. I'm still proud of these pictures, they capture an intimacy that I think is really special, and at the time were some of my favorites I'd ever taken, and even now I can note the growth between these and the first ones I'd taken.

April 2022, laptop

The first pictures taken on my laptop and my first time posing them with AMM/setting up a scene. I might like to retake these some day. I'm more critical of them than I am of my ps4 pics tbh but they're still an important part of my journey. Over time I noticed red lighting had become my comfort zone, or more specifically, a crutch! So I've tried really hard since then to improve on that and push myself in different directions.

February 2023

It took me almost a year to feel comfortable enough with posing to attempt some goddam kisses. I'm still not very good at these but at least I improved in other ways. Honestly, I struggle with these two at times because they aren't your typical outwardly loving, cute couple, and I'm usually very strict with myself to keep them as in character as I can. That can make it hard to think of couples poses/ideas, both cute and spicy, but. they can be lovebirds as a treat.

May 2023

Only recently have I begun to feel a strong sense of style in my own work. Playing with lighting and scenes, and trying to jam as much personality as I can into these slice of life pictures is really important to me and is one of my favorite parts of doing this. They can be sweet together but it's important you see the other side of that (the blood, the knives, drugs, etc. Also Dagger resting his ashtray on Dum Dum is one of my personal favorite quirks). I really try to put a lot of their life into pictures like this. I want to convey all the parts of who they are together, even if nobody else notices.

June/July 2023

Its pretty hard to articulate how important these two have become for me over the last couple years. I've been playing this game since release and haven't had this sort of steady inspiration or creativity for years. Even on the bad days, just thinking about them is enough to get me through as silly as it sounds. I've grown so much not only in VP but my own art (something I had all but entirely abandoned until I picked up this game). They've provided an outlet I've been searching for for a very long time, and I'm really grateful for that. It's kinda wild looking back at where it started, and seeing how far it's come. Sometimes I still struggle with my perception/the worth of my work but I can't deny the happiness its brought me either.

Including a couple other character ship pics under the cut c:

I'm always a little insecure about my ship pics specifically, I'm very bad at comparing myself with others! But I put a lot of love into these and I can see the improvement when I look at them over time. Regardless of anything, they were all made with lots of love and I hope that comes across.

[mrs-mquve]

OC Songs (well, not really, but close enough)

@furbyq tagged me (thank you!) and since I don't really have OCs other than my sims that aren't based on characters, she suggested I do it for my Deception IV character playlists! I'll be doing ship songs as well.

Much of my vision of the game's characters are my own, as the plots (there are two, Laegrinna's and Velguirie's stories) are secondary and considered forgettable, which is a shame because I found them as enjoyable as the gameplay. The way I've developed their personalities probably makes no sense to the few other fans and would be considered wildly out-of-character, but tbh I don't give a shit because it brings me joy, and with no fandom, there's no drama. (Hopefully).

Characters:

Ice Queen by Within Temptation: this has always been my favorite song by them but I came to associate it with Laegrinna. She is ruthless and cold for the most part canonically, however I think there's more to her than that and I'll get to that later.

Queen of the Night by Whitney Houston: This is, without a doubt, Velguirie's theme song. "I've got more than enough to make you drop to your knees," "They say I'm trouble and I don't give a damn," the lyrics pretty much speak for themselves. They don't call her the Nightmare Princess for nothing.

Shine On Me by Chris Dane Owens: This sounds like a hero's theme song and Zeno Shin is a self-proclaimed hero and big dumb idiot. Also, if you know me you're likely aware Laegrinna/Zeno is my OTP and it evokes the way I imagine him being awestruck by her. She is the Dark Side Princess but she is his light.

Who's That Girl by Madonna - Okay, so hear me out. Whereas Velguirie is entirely fire and I love her for that, Laegrinna is ice AND fire. You don't see that often because while she uses it to her advantage, she won't admit it. Kind of related to the last song it's about falling under the inescapable spell of a captivating woman. Which again is how I envision her effect on Zeno but may or may not also be something more personal.

Ships:

Latch by Disclosure ft Sam Smith: This has been one of my favorite songs since it came out well before I played Deception IV, but now in my mind it's about how Laegrinna and Zeno are drawn to each other and the metaphors are right on for a game where the main goal is using traps on enemies. (Zeno is a major enemy, by the way. You defeat him, which means yes, Laegrinna canonically kills him. But that's what AUs are for, and I'm a sucker for enemies-to-lovers).

Sleeping Dogs by Merril Bainbridge: A song I've known since high school, holy shit that was 25+ years ago now?? 💀 Another one full of metaphors - Laegrinna and Zeno drive each other crazy, but they DRIVE EACH OTHER CRAZY. Somehow, even though I always thought I hated the tsundere trope, it suits Laegrinna in my head. She doesn't want to be attracted to him but she can't resist him.

Shadows of the Night by Pat Benatar: Although I don't think they meet in canon because Evelyn is from Laegrinna's story and I didn't get very far in quest mode (I watched my husband finish it but that was forever ago) I think Velguirie and Evelyn are perfect for each other. "Surrender all your dreams to me tonight" is the line that hit me, like I said Velguirie is the Nightmare Princess, and I'm not going into detail but let's just say Evelyn is quite keen on surrendering 😂 I haven't thought of any other songs for them yet but I hope to, they're a really fun pairing and I love them.

Okay, I've seen a lot of people tagged or participated already but I'll tag @kaylynn-langerak, @celestialspritz, @h0nkytonkangels, and @esotheria-sims.

[yourlocalartsonist]

Heya! I wanted to ask about your fic, "Moths Fly In Packs", that I wanted to know for a while. Forgive me if it was answered or not:

What was your main inspiration for the actual story? Was it just a Rise AU? Did you automatically create Salena for this story? I wanna know the origins of story and what got you writing the first chapter!

Heyyyyy bestie how's it goinnnnn~

Aight so this is actually one of my favorite things to talk about cuz my ass cannot shut up about this fic but it was quite a few things that got mushed together to create the fic

First off, it was originally gonna be a comic! I just got heavily back into Rise after watching the movie in January 2023 and yk the show was cancelled for a while now. I really missed the show and already read through like every headcanon, x reader, and whatever the fuck I could find at the time so to satiate myself, I decided to make a story of my own! That was kinda already the drill for me anyway; if there's a piece of media I adore that never got the love it deserved, I continue the story myself

It was gonna be a comic focused with the boys as the main characters just like the show and would be seen as a continuation. I wasn't planning on releasing it any time soon since ya know... comic but Salena was indeed still gonna be in the story. She was just gonna be a more minor character? Not background, more like on the same level as April or Splintz; pops up often but not always

And then I realized that was a stupid fucking idea cuz no way in hell I would ever survive the torture of making comics :D I don't even enjoy making em for the most part so yk-

I had a different idea on the side. I was thinking it'd be interesting to have a separate fic version of the story but told from Salena's perspective so the audience would understand her more. But then as I kept developing the story, I realized this was the more interesting version anyway! I had a shit ton of ideas and a lot of topics I could critique and commentate on. It was genuinely fucking interesting the more I looked at it, even tho I was hella nervous no one would care for my random ass OC enough to accept them as the main character over the boys-

On a more personal note, I was going through a lot of shit prior to rejoining Rise which made my senior year of high school get a very depressing start. But in a way, watching the movie and the show saved me. Not even exaggerating, this show's done a lot for me than I'll ever be able to express. When I thought about making the fic and settled on it being the story I tell, I wanted to express all my feelings and hardships I've been through. I wanted to explore them through Salena and externalize a lot of the messages I learned and Rise felt like the perfect outlet for that; the characters just genuinely fit

That's the real reason why I had the first chapter out in like a month or two. I wasn't even sure whether to post it, it was entirely an impulse move. But I don't regret it one bit

I really do hope this story find the people I want it to. People who felt just as alone as I did, I want them to know they aren't. There are people out there who understand, who've been through the same, and who've survived and gone onto thriving. I wanted Salena to feel relatable to them since she's quite literally the first character I've made who's truly based off of myself

On the flip side, I also hope it'll reach people who have no idea what I'm talking about and haven't ever experienced what Salena has. I want this story to be an opportunity for them to step into someone else's shoes and learn how to empathize. That was why I loved books as a kid; they helped me learn to empathize. So maybe, my story can do the same. Help people to empathize with folks like Salena who are struggle and have no idea how to say so

Sorry for the long ass ramble. I genuinely do believe the origins of this fic is extremely interesting so I really love talking about it ;w;

Cheers to Chapter 9 finally being out!

[nekrophoria]

Tell us your 3 fave OC ships and the song(s) or other media you associate with them. Pass this on to 3 others (on or off anon) and let's keep the game going!

Thank you so much for this ask! <3

Honestly this is hella hard to answer for me given that

a) I can't get myself to keep going with Volatile for some fucking reason so a lot of potential ships in my story aren't realized yet or worse the characters in it haven't even been properly introduced yet (kill me, I'm bad at this)

and b) I'm really not that good at this whole romantic ship thing I'm realizing, the relationships that I personally find the most interesting in my story are either platonic, friendships, parental, sibling like relationships...that kinda stuff.

There are very few ships that I have planned in Volatile at the moment. And a lot of them are kinda crack ships or ships that are completely doomed by the narrative aka me.

Then of course there's the fact that I would spoil the hell out of people by dabbling into ships that haven't been introduced yet so....eh.....

That being said, I don't know if I can really give a good answer to this, much less an answer that anyone reading this could actually follow or find interesting at this point in time x_x

Anywhoo...I'll try.

Let's start with Roland and Liz,which is like the only potential canon ship I have in Volatile at the moment xDD

(some spoilery pics cuz I feel like it)

I absolutely adore these two together but as of now I don't think they'll have a future unless I decide to do a major rewrite. Idk. We'll see,

Anyhoo...these songs always makes me think of them:

---------------------

Then my favourite Crack/AU ship, Mabon and Caspian (courtesy of @drawing-way-outside-the-lines)

They're not really a crack ship xD But I didn't really have the chance to develop them much just yet, so as of now they're just an outlet for more nsfw and edgy shit and a more unhinged Mabon who wouldn't really be in character in the canon universe.

I find their dynamic interesting though because I feel like they both see the worst parts of themselves in each other which validates them and their behavior in certain ways, but also causes them to low key despise each other. It's a picture book co-dependent relationship that could force them to confront parts of themselves that they'd probably much rather ignore.

They have a couple of songs that I relate to them but I feel like these sum up their relationship the best:

---------------------

Aaaand last but not least:

Mel and Simon

I am not entirely sure yet how this ship will evolve, again, since Simon hasn't even been introduced in Volatile yet despite him being present on my blog for quite some time now.

But I think they're cute af together, and they have the potential to do each other a lot of good or absolutely wreck each other . That's all I can say as of now.

They also get two songs

One from Simon's view:

One from Mel's view:

[bookwyrminspiration]

popping out of a pile of sketchbooks (i am designing some new ocs... magical girl characters even. having fun) at all the notifications which have reminded to send you a couple more Thoughts even though unrelated to any of your responses!! hello again i have returned!!! and i do have to say, the fourth book in particular has DEFINITELY brought back a lot of memories of gideon the ninth, although i'm not entirely sure why...? one of my notes was "ah gtn but less fucked up. damn does communication do a lot to heal traumatized people" as like. gideon the ninth is indeed very fucked up and as much as the characters develop they do not really get shot with the therapy-inator beam, BUT they do get a similar fun situation of being a group of people stuck inside a dead/ruined thing and the occasional murder mystery/gothic horror-esque tone that both books take on. it was VERY interesting to observe the similarities, which were THEN added to by (in the fifth book) being reminded that the humans came to this universe FROM ANOTHER ONE and the other one was very likely similar to if not just our universe (although this is only based on the uhhh soft evidence that grizzst, one of the first settlers possibly, went to college & the previous universe had no magic), which is ALSO a thing that happens in the locked tomb. well. ish. it is so. just. holding these two book universes in my hands like oh when the sci fi/fantasy thing that seems so otherworldly is both that but also rooted SO deeply in a previous failure of humanity. and it is also hilarious because the destruction of the first universe is always followed by the most ABSURD names in the next it takes a minute to get used to it

Was very nervous reading through this because I haven't read the locked tomb yet, but fully intend to (I already own the first two books) and had no clue how much detail you were about to go into

But! that aside! very very fascinating. I wonder if the fact you've read tlt is influencing how you interpret the events of this one or not, because I did not make the "maybe the last universe was just ours" connection. But also it's entirely possible I just missed that detail; it's very easy to miss many many things.

And yeah!! Things being rooted in previous failure is so fascinating in the way you can't escape the past, you're always going to be affected by it moving forward. Even if you don't know anything about it. Kihrin & Co. were so completely and entirely affected by these past errors in the beginning without knowing shit about them! It shaped their entire lives--and it does for everyone else in the world, too, even though those people aren't super special main characters. something about balancing not looking back so much you can't see what's in front of you anymore while also knowing what's in front of you is completely and entirely shaped by what's behind you.

Also shout out to odd fantasy names! My bad, odd fantasy names + Janel. She's not the only more "normal" name, but when I first heard her name I had a moment of dissonance like...her name is what? I thought this was a super weird different fantasy world. I got used to it with time but it definitely caught me off guard when placed next to say, Teraeth and Thurvishar.

[absolutebl]

Hello again! Forgive me if you've talked about this before with me, I have the memory of a goldfish. Faraway Wanderers book spoiler question ahead, (if you haven't read the book this won't really apply to the show Word of Honor):

What are your thoughts on Zhou Zishu and his willingness to enter into a relationship with Wen Kexing? For the majority of the novel Tian Ya Ke, he seems to be interested in and annoyed by and tolerant of and amused by Wen Kexing, but even at the moment when the two "get together" at the end, it seems he's still reluctant. As a reader that feels unsatisfying and maybe uncomfortable that he only gets to the point of tolerating Wen Kexing's physical sexual contact. Did I miss something earlier? I know he doesn't mind physical touch in general from WKX over time, but I am curious about your thoughts. Thank you!

Hi Hi!

Sorry I don't read OC 90% of the time. Occasionally something will come out of Japan where I have actually read the manga but only if it had print publication in the USA.

I didn't even know danmei existed until my dash blew up with Untamed. Cdramas were probubly the last piece of Asian content I picked up, and I still dither over watching them.

I went something like:

Yaoi -> JBL (forgot about it) (distracted by life) emotional crisis -> YouTube -> Thai BL + (Kpop) -> Taiwanese BL -> Pinoy BL & Vietnamese BL -> grey sites and illegal content acquisition -> (Korean dramas via Kpop) -> Viki sub -> KBL -> JBL rediscovery (GaGa sub & back catalogue) -> Cdramas (mostly on the perennial hunt of noona romances and because of the pretty robes).

Some of the early CBLs were sprinkled in there when I found them on YT but I didn't really think of them as belonging to a greater oeuvre until much later when I started seriously blogging here and decided to spend all of 2020 watching every scrap of BL content I could get hold of (and developing a tracking system for it).

Frankly the film side took all my focus.

But also, one of my degrees focused on literature so OC (Y-novels or danmai etc...) and fanfic have never been my thing. What I find tolerable or amusing in captions and graphic adaptations, I find intolerable in the full written translation form. Broadly speaking, the characters and plot aren't enough to distract me from problematic prose. (And by that I mean just sentence structure, repeat word use, incorrect word choices, odd grammar.) And before you ask yes I include Twilight, 50 Shades, and quite a few English pillars of fandom in this mix.

Which is not to say I don't enjoy commercial fiction, just that i prefer it if the English is well written at core. Which usually means the translator needs to have English as their first language or be entirely bilingual, and that's just really rare especially with OC BL content.

I know this makes me snobbish. I genuinely love so many other languages, particularly when spoken and as artifacts of socio cultural interaction/representation, but when I read something in English (and that's the only language I read fluently) I get too judgey and it limits my enjoyment.

What we have in English is an excess of nuance due excess vocabulary (and our predilection for bashing other languages on the head and ruthlessly stealing their words). I don't think, in its spoken form, that English is a very pretty language. But in its written form? Its beauty is in its capacity for nuance and flexibility, and a lot of directly translated stuff (particularly that which is done by or for fans) is awkward and almost brutal with my native tongue. It pains me to read and so I... don't.

Like there are subtle use pattern differences between many English words that the thesaurus claims are equal (dour/glum actually mean subtly different things, so too sullen vs surly). So picking the wrong one because you just never learned the alternative makes me wince. Also knowing when really only the original language word will work (like for honorifics) or when a very very old English word is a superior choice because of historical context.

I guess I just get annoyed because it feels clumsy and while I can readily forgive this one medium I can't in another.

Hang ups.

We all got 'em.

[negative-speedforce]

☄️🚀🛰🌌🌕

☄️ Comet - Who is your most self destructive character? Why are they like that?

Siv, by far. It's a combination of severe trauma from watching her girlfriend be brutally murdered in front of her, and having their entire world turned upside-down, and undiagnosed Borderline Personality Disorder.

🚀 Rocket - What do you do when you get new ideas midway through a story?

"Is it better than my current ideas?", and if the answer is "yes", I adapt the story to the new ideas, and if it's "no", it usually ends up in the pile of "cool AU ideas".

🪐 Saturn - What do your characters think about marriage? Are any of them married?

Some of them are open to it, others aren't, whether it's because they're arospec/acespec or they're just not into it. Jay/Cassandra, Siv/Hailey, and some other OCs I haven't posted yet have been married, and Marie/Qiara/Liah end up as a poly throuple who aren't really into marriage.

🌌 Milky Way - What is the character development like for your characters? Do they change a lot or not much at all?

I enjoy putting my OCs through HELL. If they have something, I will take it away from them. Oftentimes, I'll give them some negative character development before their positive development begins. Usually, the character at the end isn't very similar to the beginning one.

🌕 Full moon - Do you write symbolism into your story? What does it represent?

Most of my symbolism involves themes of cycles of abuse, religious trauma, forgiveness, redemption, self-acceptance, etc.

[azems-familiar]

🦅 🥺 ❌ ✅ 💔 for the ask game.

Thank you!

🥺 is there a certain type of moment or common interaction between your characters that never fails to put you in your feels?

hmmmm. this one is hard to answer because it's so... like, vague? like i generally write character interactions to spark feelings of some kind, so it's hard to... idk, define any specific ones without a what feeling it sparks. probably some of my most emotional ones involve my Revan and writing her recovery arcs - same with Illitha, and a couple other of my characters who get really fucked up. so i guess the themes of recovery and healing that i really like to write at the end of character arcs tend to hit me the most.

❌ what's a trope you will never write?

a/b/o and mpreg are MAJOR squicks for me. i don't read them and i don't write them. i also am not generally a fan of bodyswapping at all, for reasons i cannot articulate, and i dislike bodysharing unless done in a specific way.

✅ what's something that appears in your fics over and over and over again, even if you don't mean it to?

oh god. uh. well my most used tag is Mutual Pining, and something i often write a lot of, sometimes without meaning to, is symbolism - i know that's vague but it can range from masks to names to lightsabers to clothes to [gestures vaguely]. surprisingly though i haven't actually written much of my favorite tropes? .... i do keep accidentally making my OCs autistic, does that count? OH! themes of healing! i like to destroy my characters emotionally (and sometimes physically too), but i never feel satisfied ending an arc on that note, so there are a lot of redemption arcs after corruption arcs and notes of recovery and healing and moving forward. half of these aren't written but they are In My Head.

🦅 do you outline fics or fly by the seat of your pants?

weird mix of both, tbh. i used to be entirely a pantser, and full on planning has never worked for me, i don't write up entire outlines - but my writing process works best if i have someone to bounce ideas off where i can establish a direction for the fic through conversation and then develop the fic off that as i write. this is actually why my big mdzs fic stalled; despite the fact that i know where i'm going with it, i couldn't find a beta reader to help with fleshing out the details in between the major plot events, and so i've gotten... somewhat stuck.

💔 is there a fic of yours that broke your heart?

yes, but it's old enough i won't rec it here because i'm no longer happy with any of it - but at the time i wrote it it was very, very painful. of my more recent stuff... hm. i was absolutely sobbing while writing up this fic, which the first half of focuses on Ulic and Cay Qel-Droma's big confrontation on Ossus (yes, it says it's a WIP and it is, but the first chapter can be read as a standalone). i've also cried several times over the hp au, knowing where it's going to go and discussing some of the characters in it, but very little of the actual relevant stuff to that has been actually written and posted yet!

[sof-ingtired]

Ocs? Spill

Okayokay so I have ....Many.

I have my own personal universe with 25 characters. It's a lot but used to be even more, a lot got cut as I moved it away from a creepypasta universe to my own personal one. My main cast started as creepypasta OCS when I was 12 (yes they're that old and vastly different from their first designs)

But I haven't drawn from them or written them much since so we're going to focus on the ones I DO write and do draw for

And that my dear anon is the massive universe Cali (@imma-potatoo) and I have created together. We have,,,,uuhhh,,,~48 OCs (could be more or less, I would have to count and I do not have the energy for that)

Some are less developed than others, some sprouted from a Sander Sides AU we had(have? We aren't entirely sure there yet) together and we have branches from that AU into our others.

It's a ,,, complicated thing to explain in a single ask and I will gladly take more questions on it , and tag Cali so they can share too if they want because this is our universe and our characters , not solely mine.

But there is many timelines and branches using the same characters with minour to extreme differences between them (mostly to do with character relationships and designs and species)

That's a lot of World Building rambling when you asked about OCs I apologise but,

There are many, the ones we write the most are the Lupus Siblings and their partners and children but the one I've been drawing and writing most personally is

Malachi

He is a Leviathan with a humanoid form and is dating (later Mates) Somnus Lupus , the youngest of the siblings but still very much a 30+ year old, and I adore him. He is 7'4, massive person with a separate form that is his "true form".

He is a demon and therefore (in our universe) doesn't really ..do the whole Gender thing. Gender is a mortal creation and he doesn't understand it. He uses He/Him because it fits him in his opinion but isn't upset at other pronouns.

He is very old and spent 500 years sulking in the ocean for reasons ,kinda spoiler territory, before emerging after Rome (another character of ours and technically the parent of the Ruler of The Underworld, Modification) basically went into parent mode and dragged his ass out and he then spent more time sulking before meeting Somnus and basically battling Somnus' mate Klaus for him

They settled and are now a very happy Poly relationship, Klaus and Malachi are friends (with a kind of fwb relationship) and I-

... could go on for Hours dear Anon.

If you're interested please send another ask!

Oh! Have some art of Malachi while we're here !

[suspicious-pools-of-blood]

Hi there buddy, my name is Athena. I'm coming to say hi, see how you're doing and this is a chance to ramble about your wips. How many ocs do you have, how many have been through a lot and do you keep everything tracked and organised with tables and stuff?

Hi Athena!!

I've finally finished the first draft of 1 billion years of a plate tectonic simulation for my world, so I'm doing great!

How many OCs: depending on which ones count, I think somewhere in the general vicinity of 40, though plenty of them aren't really developed (and some are unnamed though I have a decent mental idea of them). Actually, y'know what, just for fun I'm gonna see if I can name them all without checking my notes:

Elvan of Aileron (main character), Hakan/Emir (Elvan's little brother), Asenath (Elvan's lover, initially a slave in the palace), Tyros (Elvan's son with Theos), Theos of Orontes (Elvan's husband and next in line for the throne of Korsan), Calyx/Esir (Elvan's slave), Xayanat (Calyx's friend), Khadagan (Elvan's servant), Nazorat (master of the slaves in the Orontes palace), Khiana (pirate captain of The Promise), Amenset (Khiana's best friend and second in command), Amarsin (also on the crew), Leovin (crew), İpek (crew), Enitan (crew), Leyla (Khiana's protege and Amarsin's best friend), Lucian (Leyla's first master), Aletheia (Lucian's wife), Tanis (cook in Lucian and Aletheia's household), Hadrian (Leyla's second master), Vojan (Hadrian's foreman), Demir (healer in the palace), Daxe (Theos' body slave), Petros (Theos' father), Valide (Theos' mother), Pallas/Voris (Asenath's child), Sinan (gladiator and Elvan's childhood friend/frenemy), Ahmet (Emir's childhood bully), Hekate (courtesan and Calyx's mother), Hekate's madam, Kuvvet (captain of the guard), Calvio (one of Elvan's Shadows), Hafiye (Shadow), Casus (Shadow and Hafiye's twin), Katil (Shadow), Namir (gladiator), Taymiir (khagan of Saldırgan), Ruxşet (distant cousin of Theos and potential successor to the throne of Ganimet), Quintus (captain of The Promise before he was overthrown by Khiana and co.), Elvan's mother (the khagan of Atalar), father, and aunt (who essentially raised Elvan and Emir). Just checked my notes and I only forgot Melis (Theos' cousin) and İsyan (another member of Khiana's crew). So I think that's 44, not counting all the other unnamed side characters. 45 if we count Jupiter, who is Amarsin's cat.

How many have been through a lot: all the ones I like lmao. Basically any character that I develop a backstory for has been through a lot, save for those who are purely there to put other characters through a lot (looking at you, Theos and Ruxşet). There are plenty who haven't been through a lot solely because I haven't gotten to them yet. Khiana's whole crew falls into this category; Leyla's the only exception because the rest of them actually started out as side characters in her story (which is almost entirely Leyla Going Through A Lot).

Organization: boy do I! I use Notion for most of my writing stuff (I modified an existing template). I'm gonna explain using screenshots, so you get to see my notes for free :P

The bulk of the actual writing happens in this kanban board:

Idea dump, as the name would imply, is where I put ideas that I intend to turn into a full scene, chapter, etc. When I don't feel like working on any existing WIPs I usually go to the idea dump column and pick one to start elaborating. Once I've got more than a few sentences, it goes into the in progress column, and that's where it stays the longest. To be honest I rarely actually edit before posting, because otherwise I get caught up in perfectionism, so the editing column is more for pieces that I don't quite love yet and that I know I could improve, but it's not a prerequisite to pass through editing before going to the completed column. Sometimes I'll edit a piece after posting, and sometimes I don't want to post a piece at all, so rather than having a separate column for that I've got it as a checkbox property.

As for individual pieces/cards, this is how I've got it set up:

Status just indicates which column of the kanban board this piece is in.

The story property currently has five different options, but three main ones: Child of Korsan, Tribes of Atalar, and A Promise of Change. CoK is my main story with Elvan, starting when she goes to Korsan as an adolescent. (Fun fact, when I first came up with the name, the child in question was Tyros, but it has since evolved to metaphorically refer to how Elvan essentially became a new person because of that place.) ToA is everything before that; it covers Elvan and Emir's childhoods (currently the earliest event I've written anything for in ToA is Elvan's birth), but anything set in Atalar before that would go here. APoC is the (currently somewhat secondary) storyline that covers Leyla's life and everything with the pirates; this overlaps with ToA once Emir meets Khiana, and later on overlaps with CoK when Hakan gets arrested. These all fall under Legends of Kainat, my overarching WIP, but separating the storylines makes it much easier to handle parallel plots.

Next up is the year; in universe I'm probably going to have a more localized calendar system (leaning towards a "year x of y's reign" type of system), but I just wanted a way to keep track of timelines for myself so I picked a random event (Elvan and Theos' wedding) and assigned that to year 500 and based everything around that.

Setting and characters are pretty self-explanatory. I actually only have Korsan, Ganimet, and at sea as settings currently since all the ToA scenes I've written are via flashbacks.

These properties in combination are super useful for keeping everything organized. The story property I mostly use just for filtering views, so I can look at just Child of Korsan pieces, for example. Having year (or time period/date/whatever), setting, and characters together is fantastic for avoiding plot holes, especially with multiple storylines that overlap characters, because I can keep track of where each character is at a certain time, so I don't accidentally have a person from one scene showing up in another scene hundreds of miles away without giving them enough time (and narrative cause) for travelling there.

I have a sticky notes board/page that is just for jotting down individual ideas that may not be formed enough to warrant putting in the idea dump column on the kanban board. This is also where I put a lot of more general worldbuilding ideas/notes that wouldn't have an actual scene associated with them.

Here I have a timeline page, although I don't use this as much as I probably should. It's a more centralized place to keep the who/what/when/where information. This is also nice because I can filter to a variety of different views, such as only looking at one or two of the stories, only seeing what events a certain character is involved in, or only seeing stuff that happens in a specific location. It's off-screen in the image, but this is also where I've noted down each character's birth as an event. This was actually one of the main reasons I started keeping a timeline; these stories are set over the course of characters' entire lifetimes, and I never had a good sense of how old they were relative to one another. With this I can quickly check the birth year of a given character and compare it to the year a certain event took place to get an idea of their age without needing to root through my character notes.

And on the topic of character notes, I've got some of those too. I use a pretty standard character sheet type of setup here; this is mostly for keeping track of details that I won't necessarily remember but might want to refer back to, as well as keeping track of side characters who I don't spend as much time thinking about. Here's Elvan's character sheet:

And that's about it! I also have another page for notes about the conlang I'm making for this world, but I'm not going to open that can of worms right now lmao, I have put conlanging into a box on a shelf for now and need to not open it until I finish geographical worldbuilding.

[askshivanulegacy]

SHIPPING MEME!! 2, 3, 4, 5 (>.>), 14, 15, 26!

THANK

2. Talk about three of the most important ships throughout your life.

HMMMM. I'm going to include platonic ships in this, and they're all ships I've RP'd. Also, there are definitely more than 3 super important ships, so these are definitely NOT all of them.

(Platonic) Zack/Angeal/Genesis/Sephiroth from Final Fantasy 7. My first-ever set of online RPs. Really how I got into RP and art and writing! Still love them. I want to pick up the new games at some point, and I still have old fics on my to-do list.

Blakk and Saare-ha. An unplanned ship, but so good. the RP here is how I got into SWTOR. Still my canon storyline and I hope to finish some day!

Blakk and Ahuska. One of my current major ships and responsible for a few other most excellent ships, as well as some most excellent projects. >3

All of these ships and ones I haven't mentioned are of course responsible for hooking me up with my most bestest online friendships. What could be better than stories and fandoms and friends? ♥♥♥

3. What’s your current OTP?

I have several ships with Blakk that I love: Blakk/Ahuska, Blakk/Der, Blakk/Zim, Blakk/Zim/Der/Ahuska. Ofc, as my main OC, I love all my ships with him, even if they aren't listed. ♥

ALSO, I love Watcher Five/Cipher Thirteen/Crow aaaaand whoever else may or may not get wrapped up into that. 8) Cipher 13 is my newest trash child and he's amazing. >3

4. What’s your current NOTP?

Ahahahaha ... Shuri and Namor (Wakanda Forever). There's SO many things about this ship that I find extremely disagreeable.

Namor's entire arc starts with a gaslighting trip ("it's your fault I'm attacking you because you won't join me in worldwide genocide"), followed by the lovely murder of Shuri's mother. Despite his supposed agreement to stand down from his warmongering ways, he ends the movie with a renewed commitment to beat Wakanda the moment he can find a way to do it. Not once does he express remorse or any genuine desire to co-exist with Wakanda. As long as they refuse to be his tool to take over the world and/or commit mass genocide, they are his enemy. Shuri certainly (and rightfully) showed no interest in him in the whole movie. She's honestly got better things on her mind, not the least of which is her mother's murder. It's a sign of her own character growth that she even let him live after his murder spree. But at the end of the movie, Namor had no character growth: he's the same as he was at the beginning, except beaten.

I look at this ship and all I can ask is WHY. Maybe there's room in a future movie for him to develop as a character (after all, this was Shuri's story, and not his), but right now it's a ship I just can't stomach lol. It's such a weird ship. It doesn't recognize anything that happened in the movie. I appreciate a good bad guy ship, but there's nothing compelling in Namor even as a character to achieve that the way he was portrayed. And the funny thing is that it's not even presented as the random OOC ship it is, or even a solid hate-ship, it's presented like there's a basis for Shuri and Namor to actually have a loving relationship ... and there isn't. She's a child. He's a centuries-old child throwing a temper tantrum that nobody else in his entire underwater kingdom probably understands. He murdered her mother and said it was their own fault. Just nope.

People can ofc ship whoever they want, but this is the first ship I've seen that I've been so opposed to even seeing the art on my dash. These tender, loving glances between Shuri and Namor?? Wot??? Like, did we watch the same movie?? Doesn't seem like it, lol.

5. Do you have any poly ships?

I DO IN FACT. 8)

(SWTOR OCs) Watcher 5/Cipher 13/Crow +/- Ulfran is a CURRENT FAVE. Ahuska floats around on the fringes. 8)

Derrick/Blakk/Zim/Ahuska is another fun one, and I've had a couple others over the years. >3

14. How do you feel about will they/won’t they?

An excellent trope, especially in slow burn action. >3

15. Have you ever “shipped at first sight”?

Not that I recall, actually. The characters have to reveal themselves first, along with their motivations and how they tie into the story. I don't ship just anyone, and I don't do it just based on the appearance of characters. I'm also not a super frequent shipper either. I default to canon relationships all the time with zero desire to change it and zero desire to delve into fanfiction. I have to really connect to the characters and want to see more of them before I think about shipping.

26. Have you noticed a pattern in your shipping? Is there a romantic dynamic you’re more drawn to?

Now that I think about it I GUESS THERE IS.

I seem to lean strongly into angsty bad boy + heart of gold, or angsty bad boy + power figure. Honestly, as long as there's a stabby, desperate, angst bucket, my shipping radar boots up. XDD

[luna-writes-stuff]

INTRODUCTION

Go back to Starcrossed Losers masterlist

I know this is the boring part of the book, so I'm just gonna say this really quick:

First of all, thank you for reading this book and giving it a chance. Kudos to you!

Second of all, I wrote a few disclaimers down below. I know no one enjoys reading those and many skip over them and that's fine. I just wanted to be sure copyright was clearly noted in case Tolkien comes back from the dead to drag my soul six feet under for not giving him the proper rights for my writing.

Lastly: I used the time line in the books and not from the movies. If you really want to get into it and do the counting, certain ages will be wrong; for example: Smaug attacked Erebor 2770, but Thorin was born 2741, which would make him 29 at the time of the attack. Aka, a little boy, and not a grown adult as shown in the movies. The times aren't obviously wrong and you won't even notice it when you don't count the years back. I just wanted to say this before I'm getting comments about it from the people who really want to get into the story.

Further disclaimers (mainly copyright):

The OC in this book is called Raewyn. If you follow my blog a bit, you might know Raewyn is the name of the main character of my not yet published (original) fantasy book. This is not the same Raewyn. I wrote this fanfic to try to deepen myself into her character and figure out how to make her behave and speak. It has truly worked, but you must know these two are not the same character.

Credits to title idea of the story go to The Fratellis. They have a song called Starcrossed Losers. It’s not entirely like my own story, but it’s similar in a few aspects. I recommended listening to it.

Credits for storyline, existing characters, languages, planets, history and culture go to J.R.R Tolkien. In such are included:

-The basic Middle-Earth timeline

-Characters in canon such as Bilbo and Gandalf.

-Languages in canon like Sindarin and Khuzdul.

-Canon places (The Shire, Angmar, Erebor etc.)

Credit for my story line about the Ashas, non-canon characters, the Ashyr language and culture goes to me. Please do not use my ideas if you haven't gotten my permission. I spend a lot of time developing own stories, languages, characters and cultures and I wish for that to be respected.

Furthermore, this is a fanfic, which means not everything will be accurate. I try to make this as realistic as possible, but sometimes it's difficult to fit something in the story so I have to make things up. If you see something that doesn't make sense to you, feel free to comment it so I can explain.

I started writing this on Wattpad, hence the whole idea of chapters. It is not published on there yet, as I am waiting for the book to be completely finished first.

Criticism is always welcome, and I cannot stress this enough. My main language isn't English, and although I am nearly fluent, it doesn't mean it's flawless. If you see a spelling mistakes or a grammatical error, or you find that a sentence could be better constructed otherwise, please comment on it and tell me what I did wrong and how I can fix it. Do no comment things like "this isn't how it's spelled" because I do not know how to correct it. Tell me how it should be so I could alter it.

Always feel free to comment, like, reblog or whatever! It encourages me to write more, knowing that people enjoy it. I read lots of Tolkien fanfics where the readers comment and really get into the story. I love seeing that so don't be afraid to leave something!

[leahazel]

Ask meme: #6 from the last three you posted and #4 from one more. I didn't look this up so gl hope the questions don't suck

The Happy Fic Writer Ask Game

Describe what you do and your feelings after posting a chapter. (For example: When do you usually post a fic/chapter update? How do you celebrate a posting? Are you the type to refresh constantly?, etc.)

It depends on the story, really. Usually, I will copy over the text of the chapter from whatever text editor I was using, and then hit preview and do a quick proofread, for formatting as well as typos. If I'm posting anonymously, e.g. to a DW meme, that's usually it. And then I try to distract myself from the nervous F5 dance. If I'm posting to AO3, I'll save as a draft and do at least one more read-through for small errors. Sometimes on my phone, which helps me catch more mistakes.

WIP-Centric Ask the Writer!

6) What is the most frequent emotion in this story?

Ah, for the readers or for the characters? I'll answer for BFS.

I think for readers I'd like the dominant emotion to be curiosity, and that seems to be working well for me. For the characters… tenderness, I suppose. Tenderess ahead of trust, because the relationship in BFS works in reverse. First comes marriage, then comes getting to know each other, heh.

Gemstone themed Writeblr asks

Emerald: Which of your characters is hardest to write?

I would say that I struggle more with characters that I write rarely, like Christabel and Periwinkle, both 7KPP OCs. Partly because I haven't written them as much, and so their backgrounds and their families aren't as well developed, and so that creates a kind of cycle. And partly because the narration of the game gives their backgrounds a very strong, very decided voice, which does not entirely agree with my vision of them. Christabel especially was written a little against type.

Fanfic Ask Game (the movie, the sequel)

👀 Do you have any WIPs that you would never let see the light of day? If yes, what are they about?

Yikes. Well. Hmm.

I have daydreams about alternate universes for some of my OCs, ones that I don't intend to put to paper. And I have a folder of unfinished stories that won't ever reach posting status, like D&F stories that I wrote to flesh out certain background details, but which don't themselves make for very good reading.

I also have a little self-indulgent fic for someone else's work in progress, lol. But It doesn't really agree with what would eventually be "canon", and I don't think anyone would enjoy reading it but me. I do enjoy it a lot, though.

[ruckis--rookie]

Hello! I just wanted to ask you if you have any tips for writing a good and enjoyable story! I really love the stuff you posted about your ocs and I'm wondering how you managed to write a story that you enjoy so much- I'm working on a story for my ocs myself but it seems like I'm kinda stuck... I don't really know where I want the story to go or what the characters backstories should be, but you don't seem to have any problems with that kind of stuff- So I was wondering if something specific helped you come up with your story? 👀💧

(Also I hope that you are doing well and that you have a wonderful day)

I'M HONORED THAT YOU WOULD COME TO ME FOR THIS??? At the same time I feel like this one is gonna be REALLY hard to explain since a lot of my ideas come naturally to me. My head is full of so many ideas and I kind of just pour it out on to paper on the spot (I want to become a conceptual artist as a job one day for this reason)

But if I had to say, start with a rough blueprint. Like, what's the story you want to tell? For me I wanted something that had a lot of action, fantasy, adventure, a hero versus villain kind of thing. So, what fundamentals did I need to make a story like that? Well we need a problem, a cause for that problem, and a solution. If you wanna be extra, maybe even a plot twist.

For Order of the Stars, one of the overlying problems is the divide between humans and modern animals, with humans being prejudiced and accepting towards change especially after nearly wiping their entire species out.

How did I want the heroes of the story to reflect that to make the world a better place? Not kidding when I say it took me months of thinking to myself before I finally got a dynamic that worked. Roxie, who is a rat, and Aleron, who is a human. I wanted their relationship to symbolize that animals and humans CAN work together despite their differences. They can work together to create a more equal world while at the same time upholding justice and saving the world like your typical hero would.

but that's just one of the main problems of quite a few underlying problems. I didn't want the story to be a one and done thing you know? Had to have a few themes to keep it going. Example, another theme I wanted to convey is perspective, and that comes to play with the mansion crew in Xedor. Its a house full of criminals and monsters if you will, some who are wrongly accused and others who are openly horribly. Regardless they stick together because they're all under the spotlight as being bad people at surface level, even if some of them aren't. I won't go too far into detail about that though because thats big spoilerinos for plot and some characters that haven't even been introduced online yet.

a looot of thinking needs to be involved. the more you put heart and hard thinking into something the more it shows. It also helps to have outside inspiration! Don't be afraid to take inspiration from content that you love. Of course don't steal or anything but don't be afraid to take notes.

Also help! Help from others can occasionally do wonders. I do a lot of rping with close friends and while those rps don't pertain to the main story I want to eventually tell, it has helped me greatly with world building and character development. Like, there's a location called Neverliv Woods that wouldn't have existed if it weren't for the rp fueling ideas.

I suppose it starts with a blueprint or a draft, but overall just have fun with writing the story. Not all stories stay the same and many are rewritten to flow better before release if that makes any since. Just go crazy! and then do a little clean up afterwards. Second guessing yourself can lead to frustration. Eventually you'll stumble on to something that works and makes you happy! Let your imagination run wild.

Thank you for asking me for tips seriously, that makes me feel happy like you have no idea. I hope you have a wonderful rest of the week :D

[officialinvisibleanon]

Ehh- sorry about the sort of late response, your spaceship thing going so fast kinda messed with my connection, but it should be good now. I'm trying to think of all of the places I know that your mod or narrator could be, though I'm coming up empty right now. What I can do though, is answer your previous question about the roleplay being dependant on your existence. It's an interesting theory, but mostly disproved, as the world we live in depends entirely on whether the mods are currently pushing around their characters. The setting of Lyra, for example, is paused, like a YouTube video, as no one's roleplaying with her. Though if you meant currently, then yes, the lab would still be down if you weren't here. There are other roleplays that aren't connected to this shared mod area, that I'm unable to access the lab area of and can only see in the posts, like the one aqua recently did with two of her OCs unrelated to the officialverse, so not all roleplays are intrinsically connected. Most aren't, actually, and the mods work solo most of the time, with their own labs, just sort of mingling with other mods, it's a lot less common to have mods actually actively sharing a space, but ours, along with others are special cases with how connected our characters are. If you were wondering, the other mods actually aren't here right now. We've kinda just not been in this space for awhile, apart from me occasionally checking in, though there wasnt much you could do when a roleplay or story development wasn't happening, it's been a really long time since we've all been together in the same room actually...

Anyways, the only place I think your mod could be is their own personal mod area. It seemed slightly unlikely at first, what with the fact I assumed they aren't roleplaying or storybuilding, but I almost forgot your their character, and even if your connection to them has been severed and your acting on your own right now, they still have to have some sort of insight onto the fact that your back in the officialverse, even if we can't hear them right now. That's really the only thing I can think of currently, but I'll tell you if I think of anything else. If what I said is true, the narrator is likely with them, assuming their narrator isn't sentient..? Mine isn't, so I'm not really an expert on ones that are- (I haven't seen that happen yet but considering the current circumstances I'm not gonna assume it's impossible.)

*Inviz stares into space. He is trying to process what he just heard. How long has it been since the officialverse was together? Could his leaving have led to a chain reaction of events that disbanded the officialverse? This universe is fractured and quiet now, can it be fixed?*

"um... m-my narrator is sentient, actually. Not the one I'm temporarily using, but the one that's probably with the mod. He used to be non-sentient, but something about this account changed him. He showed signs of sentience a long time ago, and eventually became a character in his own right. Then I disappeared and everything changed and here we are now."

"Maybe this new narrator could also gain sentience somehow? I mean, it's a part of me, but I was a part of my mod once so... Who knows?"

"I wonder... what would happen if I tried to talk to someone? Would they respond? COULD they respond? Can I somehow string some resemblance of a universe back together?"

*Inviz pulled out his phone and dialed a number. It started ringing...*